


Without a Shepherd, a Flock Is Called a Drift

by NicoleAnell



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-08
Updated: 2012-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:33:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/400455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoleAnell/pseuds/NicoleAnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlet written for BSG Epics self-insert/original character in the fleet challenge, from the POV of a member of the Baltar cult. Set on the day of Baltar's verdict in Crossroads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without a Shepherd, a Flock Is Called a Drift

Only a few have actually gone to the trial -- Jeanne's there of course, any minute she's not with her little boy -- but the rest of us are just listening for updates on the wireless. This is the day we're supposed to have an answer. The judges are deliberating forever, and we keep having to turn down the media chatter in between, because most of them don't know what they're talking about, they're mostly killing time with hate and propaganda and it's infuriating. We know to listen for the little Special Report tune -- that always cuts in when real news is happening. My friend Raina is making soup. Some people are praying silently, a "so say we all" refrain under their breath.  
  
I keep trying to "manage people's expectations," because my father used to say I had a clear head for that. He might be found guilty -- I don't say "probably" only because I don't want to sound like a pessimist. We know as much as we can about the judges, where they stand, who might be swayed, and it doesn't look good. He could try to get another trial, but we'll need some support, we'll have to make a lot of noise to keep the guardians of the fleet from just putting their foot down and executing him within the week.  
  
A lot of people are focused on the airlock question -- would they really do that? People talk like they're going to do that, not even shoot him first, and that's crazy, that's crazy to do to a human. Eyes and hands flutter to the table of devotions constantly. Like, I had to keep telling people to leave the pictures alone, because the girls pick them up -- they hold his picture against their chest, portraits and news clippings and homemade collages, like they can protect him in spirit. And then they don't want to let go, and there's not enough for everyone. "When he comes here" -- I'm lying, I'm completely forgetting the expectations thing -- "we want it to look nice, okay?"  
  
(It doesn't look nice. I see it sometimes the way someone from outside would see it, and it's pretty embarrassing: a frame of tacky lights around our fallen idol, our jailed messiah. It started out as a vigil more than anything, the pictures and candles, like the ones for the missing. Someone would always be nearby saying a prayer for his just release, or -- if not the will of our god -- for us to carry his memory forward and not forget. I never got the shared-outpouring thing until now, like that hall on the second floor on Galactica -- how the shrine itself becomes the thing you're worshipping, taking in all the magic around it. I kept the pictures of my lost ones to myself. They never became magical at all.)

We start hearing that the judges are coming back and everyone shuts up pretty quickly and gathers together around the wireless in an anticipatory mess -- I end up standing next to strangers and don't bother looking for my friends. The girl next to me could be my sister. She's barely 17 and shaking quietly, holding my hand so tightly I'm not sure she can really feel it. The one holding my other hand is looser, and we catch each other's eyes during the wait -- she smiles. None of us ask each other's names. There'll be time for that later, I think.  
  
That it's Captain Franks and not Adama reading the verdict is already a good sign, there was always something nuanced and gentle in her voice. Jeanne will tell us later how Baltar cried when she said the words, _not guilty_ , and our tiny faction stood up and cheered without fear as others rushed the barriers violently. (I could never do that. I feel guilty but saner for it.) The only word I ever hear is "not": that's when the younger girl clutching my hand lets out a scream, piercingly, and falls to her knees, and she's so much like my sister -- not spiritually, not metaphorically, but my beautiful hysterical teenage sister who had just spent 80 cubits on Picon City Riot tickets the day we all died -- that I let go of her hand and wrap my arms around her shoulders while she catches her breath and sobs. It occurs to me eventually that I wasn't expecting this at all, and it's hard to imagine a flesh-and-blood Baltar standing in this room where the prayers and pictures were, soaking up all our fears and hopes the same way. I hadn't managed my own expectations for this. I'm not actually sure what's going to happen now.


End file.
